MOPs & MOEs

Mike Erwin is a long overdue guest for this podcast, and he brings a wealth of insight that spans everything from his experiences in combat to leading multiple nonprofit organizations to his efforts to reshape education in America. A 2002 graduate of The U.S. Military Academy at West Point with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics, Mike was commissioned as an Intelligence Officer, serving in three combat tours with the First Cavalry Division and 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne). His service includes deployment to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004-2005 that involved the Battles of Fallujah and Najaf. Mike also deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2006-2007 and 2009. Following his third deployment, Mike attended the University of Michigan from 2009-2011, where he studied positive psychology and leadership under the tutelage of the co-founder of positive psychology, Dr. Chris Peterson. He went on to serve as an Assistant Professor in Psychology & Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy from 2011-2014. He continues to serve as an instructor there as a LTC in the Army Reserve. While in graduate school in 2010, Mike founded a non-profit organization named Team Red, White & Blue (Team RWB) with the mission to to enrich the lives of America's veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity and a vision towards forging America's leading health and wellness community for veterans. Today Team RWB has nearly 200k members across over 200 chapters globally. He is also co-founder & CEO of the Positivity Project—a non-profit organization with the mission to empower America’s youth to build positive relationships. With 542 partner schools, the organization reaches 332,000 children daily. He is the CEO of The Character & Leadership Center and has done leadership development with over 100 major organizations. He also serves as the founding Chairman of the Board for Father Vincent Capodanno High School, outside Fort Bragg, NC. Finally he has authored two books: Lead Yourself First (co-authored with Ray Kethledge) and Leadership is a Relationship (co-authored with Willys Devoll). Mike lives on a 32-acre farm in North Carolina with his wife Genevieve and their four children; Eli, Adelaide, Therese and Matthias. If you want to read the Wall Street Journal article Mike mentions, it is "Socrates Never Wrote a Term Paper" by Jeremy Tate and it discusses how AI (specifically ChatGPT) is impacting education, and suggests that the Socratic method might offer a way forward.

Our guest for this episode is Newton Cheng, a father, world class powerlifter, engineer, and Google's Director of Health and Performance. In his work he leads a team with the mission to support the physical, mental, social and spiritual health and wellbeing of Google's global workforce. We went into this conversation looking to compare corporate wellness with tactical human performance, but we came away from it with so much more. This wide ranging conversation covers everything from the importance of mastery practices to making meaningful social connection their primary measure of effectiveness. While Newton works in a space that is very different from the military, it is astonishing how many of the points he made are directly relevant to challenges we face. At times it felt like he had been in some of the same meetings we have. He argues that retention means ensuring talented people flourish in your system, that quantitative data may not be the most important thing when considering health and wellness outcomes, and that vulnerability is a superpower because of the way it enables meaningful social connection. He also spends some time addressing his personal experience with taking mental health leave from work, and if that's something you want to hear more about, he speaks about it frequently in numerous other forums. If you're the kind of listener who wants to follow up on all the interesting references Newton provides, here they are: He recommended the work of Dr. Lauren Whitt, Google's Head of Resilience. He suggested Ken Wilbur's Integral Theory and Paul Gibbons' work on The Science of Successful Organizational Change. He discussed how he was influenced by Miyamoto Musashi's Book of Five Rings, a classic book on strategy that is rooted in martial arts but has gained new popularity in the strength training community. He highlighted the value of Charles Vogl's The Art of Community for leaders seeking to build a culture of belonging in any organization. He cited Gallup survey findings that people who have a best friend at work get more done in less time, support a safe workplace with fewer accidents, are more likely to innovate and share ideas, and have more fun while at work. He highlighted Microsoft's Work Trend Index, and especially its emphasis on increasing rates of employee burnout.

Job Fransen is a skill acquisition specialist working at the University Medical Centre Groningen in the Netherlands and a adjunct fellow at the University of Technology Sydney’s School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation. His research focuses on optimizing skill acquisition in athletes. He has worked with high performance athletes and individuals from around the world, across elite sport, esports and gaming and the military. Job is also a skill acquisition consultant, assisting some of the world’s best coaches to design practice that optimizes learning across a range of sports, most notably rugby, Australian football, soccer and basketball. We discovered Job's work because of a preprint article he released that provides extensively resourced evidence to argue two main points: (1) A far transfer of skills is something we all think we do yet it is very difficult to achieve. Instead we mostly achieve near transfers of skills between very similar or related tasks. (2) Cognitive training is evidenced not to have a far transfer in robust scientific research in psychology, yet numerous tech companies claim to have the ‘next best cognitive or perceptual training tool’ for improving sports performance while these transfers are exceptionally difficult to achieve and there is no evidence these tools can even achieve them. In this episode we start of by defining the concepts of "near transfer" and "far transfer" and then set off on a wide ranging conversation about how to better deliver actual evidence based cognitive training. We address the heated debate among researchers in this space, critique some of the popular technologies, and arrive at some pretty valuable insights on how to integrate skill acquisition principles into the ways we train, such as the optimal challenge point model. If this is a topic that excites you, you're in luck. Both ahead of and during our conversation Job pointed us towards a wealth of resources. We'll include links to numerous references below, but if you want to contact Job directly he is very open to that. You can email him at Job.Fransen@gmail.com or reach him on his LinkedIn. References: A critical systematic review of the Neurotracker perceptual-cognitive training tool Near and Far Transfer in Cognitive Training: A Second-Order Meta-Analysis Far Transfer: Does it Exist? Do “Brain-Training” Programs Work? Business leaders praising Lumosity's success then just two years later Lumosity settles for millions and admits lack of evidence for their claims

We’re back with another “Xs and Os” episode about how to plan your training, this time focusing on strength specifically. In this episode Drew lays out his version of the Heavy-Light-Medium framework. His primary influence here was the work of Andy Baker who was in turn influenced by Bill Starr, and you’ll find many commonalities between this framework and some of the most popular templates like Starting Strength and Westside. This version of Heavy-Light-Medium is different from the original. Instead of relying on different %1RM of the same movements, it uses exercise selections that force the athlete into differently loaded variations of the same foundational movement pattern. This adjustment makes it more applicable outside of powerlifting. Drew also introduces a variety of ways to incorporate variations on the core framework, ultimately arriving at a tactical template that looks an awful lot like “Heavy – Pump – Metcon” (you’ll have to listen to figure out that part). Some of this can get a little hard to picture visually when you’re only listening to the audio, so this episode will be accompanied by both a blog post and an Instagram post with the visuals for the 3x3 charts that are discussed. Yes, I (Alex) know I mispronounced Schoenfeld’s name at the beginning, and yes I should know better. But Drew is the one with the Master’s degree in this field, so I blame him for not correcting me. Article on Minimum Effective Dose Article on Optimal Dose Article on Reexamining Rep Ranges

How can we navigate a health and fitness space riddled with pseudoscience and misinformation? What does it mean to live in the post-truth era? How can we all train ourselves to become better critical thinkers? We dive into all this and more with Dr. Nicholas Tiller, who we discovered because of his call to action paper about the need for exercise scientists to contest the growing amount of misinformation in the space. Nick is a senior researcher in the Institute of Exercise Physiology and Respiratory Medicine (Lundquist Institute) at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Tiller has a broad research profile, contributing numerous peer-reviewed studies in cardiopulmonary function (specifically in chronic respiratory disease), respiratory mechanics, and exercise limitation. Tiller is a leading authority in the physiology and pathophysiology of extreme exercise, a subject of personal interest in his capacity as an ultramarathon runner. He is an associate editor of the International Journal of Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.  While Nick's work focuses on exercise science, he is fundamentally a skeptic and an advocate for critical thinking. This lens is apparent throughout all of his work, and drives much of what we discuss in this episode.  Check out his website here He's also very active on Twitter ​His book Skeptics Guide to Sports Science has been reviewed as one of the "Best Sports Science Books of All Time" and easy a great reference from common exercise science myths. His column on Skeptical Inquirer is also excellent. For more on the story we briefly discussed about the British con artist who scammed militaries with fake bomb detectors, you can start here. If you want to dive deeper into our brief conversation about the Tuft's Food Compass research and the subsequent Joe Rogan drama, start with this blog post. Some of the reading that Nick suggests includes: Isaac Asimov's Robot series (and Alex also recommends Foundation) Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World James Randi's Flim Flam He also recommends the following podcasts for aspiring skeptics: Skeptics Guide to the Universe Geologic 

This episode is a roundtable discussion about the experiences of women in strength and conditioning, and especially in the tactical environment. Erica Mansaray, Jaimie Lafler, and Paula Arreola are all coaches working in different parts of the tactical space. Their academic and professional backgrounds are varied, including more and less traditional paths, everything from high school to professional sports, and both conventional and special operations military environments across multiple branches. The conversation covers a lot of ground, but some highlights include working in male dominated environments (both military and athletics), getting mansplained to (which we explained to them), and their thoughts on gender based fitness standards in the military. On some issues they were unanimous, while on others they disagreed, and their feedback provides a ton of valuable insight. You can find out guests on Instagram at: @coachjaimie (https://www.instagram.com/coachjaimie/) @paulaarr15 (https://www.instagram.com/paulaarr15/) @ericanicolerica_ (https://www.instagram.com/ericanicolerica_/) Since we also mentioned MoveU's educational content, you can find them at: @moveU (https://www.instagram.com/moveu/)

We’ve been trying to get Nick Barringer onto the podcast for a few months now, but he’s too professional to get in the trenches with us. At least he was until a recent report came out about the Occupational Physical Aptitude Test (OPAT). Years ago Nick warned the Army that the standards were too low for the OPAT to accomplish its goals, and he took a lot of heat for being publicly critical. Fast forward to today, and the Army Auditing Agency has confirmed he was right, the OPAT accomplished none of its stated goals. In addition to vindicating Nick, we also take time during this episode to discuss the state of military fitness more broadly, including a chat about World War II standards, things like La Sierra High School PE, and plenty of other good fitness history. LTC Barringer's original critique of the OPAT: https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2016/10/08/commentary-officer-takes-on-the-army-s-new-opat-and-pulls-no-punches/ Jim Gourley's commentary piece for Tom Ricks' Best Defense Column on Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/20/major-nick-barringer-says-the-armys-new-opat-is-garbage-but-the-armys-leadership-cant-see-why-that-matters/ DoD Inspector General Semiannual Report to Congress (April - September 2021): on page 54 of this document (page 64 of the pdf) you can finding the excerpt that tipped us off to this OPAT audit: https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/30/2002900902/-1/-1/1/SEMIANNUAL%20REPORT%20TO%20THE%20CONGRESS%20%E2%80%93%20APRIL%201,%202021%20THROUGH%20SEPTEMBER%2030,%202021.PDF Army Audit Agency report on the OPAT (this is the only place this document has been released publicly): https://static1.squarespace.com/static/63ac58edac97035ec3c43c24/t/63e816f419a20621c21f7fe4/1676154615480/Audit+Report+A-2021-0052-FIZ+FOIA+%28002%29_Redacted+%281%29.pdf July 2018 article claiming that "OPAT reducing trainee attrition, avoiding millions in wasted training dollars, officials say" despite the Army Audit Agency finding that trainee attrition continued to get worse: https://www.army.mil/article/207956/opat_reducing_trainee_attrition_avoiding_millions_in_wasted_training_dollars_officials_say La Sierra High School PE/The Motivation Factor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fISgKl8dB3M&ab_channel=DougOrchard This disclaimer applies to every episode, but it's extra important on this one. Everything expressed in this episode reflects only the opinions of the individuals, and does not represent any of the organizations with which they are affiliated.

Guy Shamam is an Israeli Defense Force special operations soldier who transitioned into the reserve and is now working to address problems with the health and fitness of reserve service members in Israel. He reached out to us looking for advice on developing a program, and we decided to record the conversation because this is the kind of stuff that many of our listeners are working to address. While Israel has mandatory service requirements and the structure of their reserve is very different from ours, many of the problems they struggle with in the health and fitness space are nearly identical. In this live working session we talk our way through various considerations around assessments and training that we hope will provide some insight for all of you. Guy's unit is an extremely cool special operations demolitions team called Yahalom, and you can check out what they do here: https://youtu.be/rDYoNdVgiQI During the episode we talked about some of the debates in Israel about the state of their reserve forces. Here's an article I referenced during that conversation for some background: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-729060 Guy has agreed to share his contact info if you want to reach out to him directly: LinkedIn: Guy Shamam Instagram: @guy.sham Email: gbilas76@gmail.com

On this episode we welcome our first general officer guest, BG Mike Drowley, call sign Jonny Bravo. Brrrrrrt enthusiasts will appreciate that he is an A-10 Warthog pilot which, for the unfamiliar, means he flies an aircraft that is effectively a giant machine gun with wings. Pilots face unique performance demands that revolve around around applying technical skills under pressure while resisting g-forces on their bodies. BG Drowley discusses these, but we also had a wide ranging conversation about leadership at the strategic level, taking care of people, and the importance of human performance professionals being completely integrated with the units they support. He's an engaging and thoughtful leader, and his authenticity is immediately apparent when you talk to him. Catch his TED Talk with 2+ million views here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WtQqKrbmKc He also appeared on Simon Sinek's podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXLunCM7ISw 

Erin Williams (aka @runstrongmama) is a mom, an athlete, a running coach, and an accomplished Army engineer officer. In this episode we discuss how all of those experiences have shaped her approach to fitness. Erin Williams was a Division 1 basketball player at West Point, and was commissioned as an Army Engineer officer in 2011. Since then, Erin has completed a variety of military schools including Sapper and Jumpmaster, served in the 82nd and the 101st Airborne Divisions, earned a data science degree from Harvard, and had three children. In 2018, she also became a run coach. She holds certifications from Road Runners Club of America and VDotO2, and coaches with the service Lift Run Perform. She is a strong advocate for women in military service, and has focused her efforts in the past 2 years on highlighting shortfalls in the military child care space and how this impacts service members and families. This wide ranging conversation covers everything from how to incorporate strength training into a running program to the state of pregnancy and postpartum physical training (P3T) in the Army. Erin has some valuable insights into a wide range of topics, so we covered a lot of ground with her. And if you want to learn more about her advocacy for women in the military, follow her platforms! Erin mentioned a few useful resources that she recommends people check out, so here they are: Laura Norris' running blog: https://lauranorrisrunning.com/ Dr. Alyssa Olenick: https://doclyssfitness.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/doclyssfitness/ Jack Daniels' VDOT: https://vdoto2.com/ She coaches with Lift Run Perform, find out more about them here: https://liftrunperform.com/